


The Endless Child

by phoenixyfriend



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Child Abuse, Gen, Immortality, Introspection, Invasion of Privacy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-06
Updated: 2018-03-17
Packaged: 2019-04-01 10:54:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13996761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoenixyfriend/pseuds/phoenixyfriend
Summary: Lotor is not like other children.He knows this from a very young age.For him.He supposes, as he watches people pass his room, that he is very old to be so young.He's five centuries old now. He should be entering the prime of his life. He's heard everyone say so, when they think he isn't listening.Instead, he's small, barely able to hold his own weight up when he walks. He is a child, still, in all ways but time. He is small, and sickly, and time does not move for him as it does for others.





	The Endless Child

**Author's Note:**

> A lot of Lotor posts don't really get into this part of him. I wanted to.

Lotor is not like other children.

He knows this from a very young age.

_For him._

He supposes, as he watches people pass his room, that he is very old to be so young.

He's five centuries old now. He should be entering the prime of his life. He's heard everyone say so, when they think he isn't listening.

Instead, he's small, barely able to hold his own weight up when he walks. He is a child, still, in all ways but time. He is small, and sickly, and time does not move for him as it does for others.

(But his brain works. He's not large, and his emotions are still that of a child. His mental age and development are comparable to a toddler, just like his body. But he can read, and remember, and it's such a boring life without the chance to learn about the universe beyond as he parses sentences on a page.)

(He can't fight. He can barely leave his room. But he can read, in the chaos of this expanding Empire.)

(His eyes glow.)

o.o.o.o.o

Lotor is thirteen centuries old when they deem him capable of holding a sword. It is heavy, and he dislikes it. It does not suit his hand as he wishes it to, and they run through style after style until they find a sword that works for him.

"Pah. Altean," Zarkon scoffs, when he sits in on one of Lotor's training days. Lotor's chest seizes up when he sees him, as it always does, hoping for a word of pride or even neutral acceptance, but it is quickly dashed. "A weapon from his mother's people."

Nobody tells Lotor about his mother. He's only ever managed to get a name once, from Zarkon himself, and Lotor keeps that name carefully written in his journal. He's under no illusions that the journal is private, not really, but they still let him keep it. It's enough to pretend.

"Is there not a Galra weapon that better suits him?"

"My apologies, Emperor Zarkon," the teacher says, voice only just wavering. "We tried other styles, but this weapon suits him best. His bones are built differently from a pure Galra's. They do not adjust to a perpendicular hilt as well."

Zarkon grunts and leaves without a word.

(Lotor tries to drop the sword, to use a new weapon, but it doesn't take long for it to be apparent that the teacher is right. A proper Galra sword at this age makes his bones scream in protest when he tries to block a hit or cause a slice, but he can work with the Altean sword, can hold and swing and stab.)

(Lotor decides that if he must use a weapon his father disapproves of, then he will at least use it well.)

(Lotor also decides to research his Altean roots. There must have been some good to them, if Zarkon had wed his mother. There must have been something, despite Zarkon's own words of derision.)

(His eyes still glow.)

o.o.o.o.o

Lotor's growth is even slower as he ages, but his mind races ahead.

At two and a half millennia, he's still... a child. Prepubescent, and nobody's quite sure by how much. Most of those who would have known a Galra-Altean hybrid before the fall of Daibazaal are now dead, and even then, none aged as slowly as Lotor did.

He has new teachers. The old ones died, not living to see him reach adulthood. Some cling to life, or took Haggar's quintessence treatments, but even they age in ways that Lotor did not.

There are eyes on him at all times.

Haggar is his father's right hand in ways that none of his commanders are. "High priestess," they call her, but that is a role that Lotor does not believe is as old as people like to pretend. She is clever. Stooped with age, yes, vicious and cruel and mad, but clever all the same. There aere none in the Empire that compared, and the few who come close become her druids.

Lotor saw the making of a druid, once. It wasn't a pretty sight, but he didn't flee until it was over. He needed to know.

Haggar watches him, always. There are cameras, and guards, and maybe more.

He sees her more often than the other commanders. Lotor is still sickly, though less and less as he inches ever closer to adulthood. Haggar checks his quintessence, and frowns and mutters and grits her teeth, but she doesn't experiment on him more than is absolutely necessary for his survival, and it  _hasn't_ been necessary in many centuries. She daren't, not with Zarkon's disapproval hanging like a blade over them all.

Zarkon does not  _like_ having Lotor for a son, but he is still protective, in his own way. Lotor is given housing and food and training and tutors, is taught better than any other child in the Empire, even if Lotor is far older than any child should be. He is clothed and guarded and given medical attention whenever his body tries to fail him.

Lotor is a disappointment, but he is one that Zarkon suffers to live.

He is not allowed to forget that.

(The glow in his eyes hasn't faded, but it isn't as obvious now. More and more born into the Empire have such eyes, as Haggar's experiments and medical treatments churn out soldiers, and the children of those soldiers inherit the burning yellow.)

(They still glow.)

o.o.o.o.o

Lotor fights well.

He is four thousand years old, and has grown up as the stunted son of the Empire. There are many that pity him for it, but still more that envy him. His childhood has lasted longer than most of their lives. His full life, they expect, will last still longer.

Zarkon is undying, and is worshipped for it.

Haggar is undead, and is feared for it.

Lotor is unaging, and is hidden for it.

He isn't unaware of it. Most of the Empire doesn't even know that Zarkon has a son, and the ones who do aren't prone to gossip these days. He is unaging and half-Altean, was among the first to have Haggar's treatments visible in his eyes, and those who know of his existence also know of his importance. Half-Galra or not, eternal child or not, sickly or not, he is important.

He is still pre-pubescent, but the Druids and doctors think that it is only just. Any decade, now. A century or two, at most.

Lotor knows patience, and he knows of the ravages a body undergoes at the hands of a puberty. He is willing to wait.

He doesn't see Haggar as much these days. She has her own projects, weapons and creatures and always, always quintessence. He asks her once, idly, why she obsesses over it so. She pauses in her examination of his scans and tells him that he isn't ready, isn't learned enough, to know why and how quintessence powers the Empire, how it powers them _all._

A druid takes over, later, and Lotor asks again. The druid takes a long moment to answer, and it is the first time Lotor has heard his mother's name in almost three millennia. The druid speaks of a rift and the destruction of a planet, of Voltron and hordes of small, powerful creatures, of unlimited power and life, and Lotor grows curious.

His mother studied this rift, before her death. It was likely even what killed her.

Lotor has always been clever. He is not cruel, or so he likes to think, nor mad. Vicious, when he needs to be, but there is always need for that in the Empire. He'd be dead dozens of times over if he hadn't learned to bare his teeth and swing his sword.

He'd be dead hundreds of times more if he hadn't learned how to lace his words with oil and sugar water, to speak softly and avoid insult, to spread rumors and gossip that take away his greatest threats to other parts of the Empire.

There are many who don't like the fact that Zarkon has an heir. They're less likely to kill him if they're at work trying to expand the empire, rather than holding territories here and visiting often.

But there are bigger things to worry about now. Lotor needs to know what quintessence really is.

(He does not know it, but this is when the glow begins to fade. It will be centuries before it is noticed. It will be millennia before it is gone.)

o.o.o.o.o

Six thousand years, and Lotor is just barely pubescent, still. He is stronger now, and faster, but it's not always enough. He is still smaller than the average Galra, and while the Alteans were stronger than many species, they were not stronger than Galra.

His size works against him.

It's frustrating in its own way. He's been practicing forms and learning strategy for longer than his opponents have been alive, but he is little more than a child. It does not help that he  _knows_ how to win when his body is not yet capable of it. His opponents, almost all full Galra, like to taunt him with it. He can fight his peers in size and win, always, but they grow faster than he does. Opponents that he wipes the floor with in one decade are holding him down effortlessly in the next. He can dodge, yes, and he's faster and cleverer than anyone expects him to be, even after fighting him once, twice, a dozen times, but it's not enough.

It's never  _enough_.

It'll be millennia before he can fight them, and by then they'll most likely be dead, assuming the witch's life-extending experiments don't keep these specific Galra alive for longer than they should be. His body is aging even slower now than it did when he was still younger. He might have expected to reach adulthood centuries ago, had the growth pattern from his first half-millennium held true, but it  _hadn't_. Whether it was a natural consequence of whatever had slowed his growth in the first place, or just a manufactured consequence of the witch's healing, it's holding him back.

Lotor doesn't want to die sooner. He knows that people say a childhood and adolescence should be treasured, because adulthood is full of responsibilities he doesn't want, and so on. But his life is already full of responsibilities, and other than the eternal Mu, there are few sapient species in the cosmos that spend as long as he has in childhood.

He closes his eyes, hisses out a long breath between parted teeth, and pushes himself to his feet, facing off against Sendak once more.

He'll get there eventually.

He has to.

(His eyes barely glow nowadays.)

(People take it as yet another sign of weakness.)

(He worries that they're right.)

o.o.o.o.o

He is eight thousand, seven hundred years old when he begins to win against adult Galra again.

He is gracious of it, cites his many years of training, explains that it is experience and little more.

He doesn't care as much as he should, probably. He's been learning more about quintessence, sneaking books from libraries and, when he's very lucky, lessons from druids.

Haggar mustn't disapprove, or at least not enough to stop him. He knows she's still watching his every move, and he hates it. He's late in adolescence now, nearing adulthood, but her watching eyes and grasping fingers close ever tighter around him. She controls him, watches him, and he has no way out.

(His eyes don't glow.)

(He doesn't care.)

(He just needs some control over his life.)

(Just.)

(Something.)

o.o.o.o.o

He is over nine and a half thousand years old when the doctors and druids and  _Haggar herself_ declare him an adult. They take him to Zarkon, prostate themselves, explain that the long wait is over.

Zarkon watches him, unmoving, for several long moments. He makes a noise, irritable but accepting. "A test, then."

"A test, my liege?" Haggar asks.

"A planet," Zarkon says. "Sendak recently conquered it, and now it needs administration as our troops move on. We require quintessence extraction, for as long as the planet can sustain it. It's not high priority; even a half-breed should be able to manage it."

Something in Lotor's chest clenches, but he doesn't let it show.

"Of course, father."

He starts planning immediately.

As long as the planet can sustain it? If it's low priority, then it probably doesn't have much in the first place. Perhaps if drained slower, it will last longer, and replenish at a rate that will allow for more in the long term, even if it cuts down for the moment. Ten megaunits of quintessence for two years is the general expectation for a low-priority quintessence source before it is drained dry and left for dead. If Lotor cuts it down to only four megaunits... well, it will mean less for the moment, but it may mean they can source the energy for a decade or more, and it's certainly a long-term benefit. If he consults with the locals, then he can find out what the largest quantity is for the planet to continue producing quintessence  _indefinitely_ , and leaving the Empire with a planet that will produce, even at a low level, for centuries longer than expected, at minimum. He could even manage it without harming the locals.

Lotor's head spins with plans.

(His eyes don't glow. They haven't for thousands of years.)

(His cheeks... they almost do.)

(Sometimes.)

(Rarely.)

(He is so very desperate for home, after all.)

o.o.o.o.o

When Zarkon finds out how he's been managing the planet, it is destroyed, and so are all its people. So many lives lost, so many  _friends_ and  _families_ and  _sapient beings all._

To Zarkon's face, Lotor makes the argument that had started him down this path. Less energy for the moment, but more for the future. The Empire was going to run out of quintessence eventually, after all. It was already squeezing planets dry in an attempt to cover its bloated territory. They needed long-term sources.

"And then they will think us soft," Zarkon argues back, disdain in every word. "They will think us  _weak_. Just like Altea."

The words are like a slap to the face, more so than the subsequent banishment.

Fine.

Just like Altea, is it?

Then  _fine_.

He's been researching Altea and quintessence for millennia. He's learned what he could about his mother. He's gleaned what information was available on the void that destroyed Daibazaal.

He'd done that all offhand.

He is one of the most learned scholars in the entire Empire, Galra or not. He's had too much  _time_ to be anything less.

Just like Altea?

Then so be it.

Lotor is going to be as Altean as his father accused him of.

He is going to learn it  _all_.

(His eyes have not glowed since he first made this promise when he was a child.)

(They do not glow now.)

(But there is a tug in his chest, in a direction he doesn't know, and something flutters in the fabric of reality.)

(Something pulls him.)

o.o.o.o.o

Voltron wakes.


End file.
